In the past, bone marrow transplants have been performed with success but have involved considerable pain due mainly to the number of bone marrow aspirations which must be performed. Bone marrow is comprised of bone marrow cells and large volumes of sinusoidal blood. For instance, it is not uncommon to have to insert a needle on the order of fifteen to seventy times into different sites or locations in order to recover acceptable quantities of bone marrow. Moreover, the bone marrow which is extracted is not separated from the sinusoidal blood, and in transfusing substantial volumes of material into the recipient, the bone marrow cavity is so finite and limited in capacity that it cannot readily accommodate huge volumes of blood and bone marrow. Thus, it is customary to inject the mass of material into the vein and depend upon the bone marrow present to find its way back into the marrow of the patient so as to function as normal marrow and undergo normal growth. A typical case requiring bone marrow transplantation is one in which healthy bone marrow is removed from a cancer patient prior to chemotherapy and the same bone marrow reinfused into the patient after chemotherapy. Another example is the need for bone marrow transplantation into a patient with decreased bone marrow function as in aplastic anemia or bone marrow failure due to drugs. In this latter situation, healthy bone marrow must be removed from a healthy donor with the healthy marrow being infused into the recipient patient.
It is therefore desirable to provide for a method and apparatus by means of which bone marrow may be harvested from a patient with a minimal number of needle placements which is capable of being performed under local anethesia over a relatively short period of time. Moreover, it is desirable that the procedure be virtually painless once the needles are inserted into the patient so as to avoid activation of stretch receptors in the marrow cavity.